Non-Dualism with a Human Heart
on Love and Fear, by Yehoo Shalem
This essay was inspired by a new powerful and deeply touching song that my son, Yehoo Shalem, released today, called “Love and Fear.”
Before diving into the piece, I invite you to take a few quiet minutes to listen to the song - it will set the emotional tone and context.
Then, continue to read my thoughts on love, fear, brokenness, and the light that shines through the cracks if we let it.
What makes Yehoo Shalem’s song ״Love and Fear״ unique, in my eyes, is that unlike many non-dual philosophies that can come across as cold or inhuman, Love and Fear offers a warm, emotional approach to life. While rooted in non-dual awareness, it remains deeply and profoundly human.
“Fear is saying, it is dangerous for me to love - my heart might break apart”
Fear sees heartbreak as an existential threat. For a brief moment in the song, we can all relate to fear’s voice. Heartbreak is the flip side of love. Every cat we’ve ever loved has taught us this lesson. Every relationship that once lit our eyes with joy and eventually left us shattered on the sidewalks of life has shown us that everything we love will one day disappear – and our loving heart will inevitably break.
Fear learns its a lesson and in order to avoid heartbreak, it decides: better not to love at all. Better not to get attached. It would rather keep the heart closed than risk pain. And we can totally understand it. It is so human.
But then comes Love, with words of unexpected wisdom, and gently bypasses fear’s reasoning:
“Love, Love is saying, may my heart break apart, and clear a space for a bigger heart.”
Love doesn’t try to argue with Fear. She doesn’t deny that love can lead to heartbreak. But unlike fear, Love welcomes the heartbreak. It’s not just that Love sees heartbreak as a price worth paying -- Love sees it as a sacred gift in itself.
Love says, “may my heart break apart,” Not because she is brave, but because heartbreak is by itself a fertile ground – it allows Love to do what Love loves to do most: to love, even more fully.
Earlier Love said:
“It doesn't matter what you give me, I will always want to love more.”
And now Love offers us a living example:
Even if you give me a heartbreak, I’ll use it to love more. When my heart breaks, it clears space in my chest for an even bigger one. A broken relationship doesn’t teach me to avoid love -- it teaches me how to love deeper, more beautifully, from now on.
There’s an old story:
The Emperor of Japan had a beautiful bowl from China. One day it broke (we won’t ask what happened to the poor soul who broke it…).
The palace staff sent it back to China for repair, but when it returned, it looked awful -- like a cheap “Made in China” fix. The craftsmen had tried to make it look brand new, hiding the cracks as if it had never been broken, and this only made it uglier.
Enraged, the Emperor turned to Japanese artisans — and when the bowl was returned, it was indeed more beautiful than before. Instead of hiding the cracks, they filled them with gold. Thus was born the Japanese art of Kintsugi.
“May my heart break apart” says Love, like a real Kintsugi master, and I will fill the cracks with pure gold.
It is thanks to cracking wide open that I become more beautiful. Through heartbreak, I learn how to love more -- not less.
My wise friend Katara once told me:
“We don’t suffer from heartbreak – we suffer from our resistance to fully experience it. It’s the resistance that causes prolonged suffering, not the heartbreak itself.”
Just like the Rebbe of Kotzk once said:
“There’s nothing more whole than a broken heart.”
Because a heart that’s properly broken gets filled with the golden light of the soul.
Leonard Cohen sang:
“There is a crack in everything — that’s how the light gets in.”
The soul’s light needs those cracks to shine.
An unbroken heart may be arrogant, and its love -- shallow.
Love is like figs: when they’re ripe and sweet, they crack. If they have no cracks, they’re still unripe.
Our culture teaches us to resist heartbreak, to see it as something negative we must avoid, just like Fear believes in the song.
But what if we had learned to let our hearts break? What if we were excited to feel heartbreak — knowing it will make more space in the chest for an even greater love?
When our beloved is with us, they allow us to experience the love that already exists in us.
I once said to my beloved:
“Thank you for letting me love you this fully.” Until I fell in love with her, I didn’t know how much love actually lived inside me, and how good it felt to love.
But what happens when our beloved disappears?
Death, and the inevitable changes of life, will one day take away everyone we love. The objects of our love will vanish - and we will be left shattered, searching for what once opened our hearts so wide, and is now gone.
We tend to think that the object of our love is the source of the love we feel - but the truth is, that love was inside us all along.
Love is our very essence. That person we loved, our cat or parrot - they were only mirrors that let us experience the love that already lives within us.
Love radiates from within us like a beam of light - but we only see that light through a reflection.
And yet, the object that reflects our love is not the source of it. We are. We are made of Love.
Fear believes that when love's object is lost, love is lost too.
But Love knows otherwise. When the beloved disappears, it is an opportunity to love without conditions - to be love, not just feel it.
These ideas about the broken heart being even more whole than an unbroken one sound so good that even Fear, in the song, says:
Well – “If I will do no wrong… Then maybe I will become Love.”
Boom. Turns out Fear doesn’t like itself very much.
It wants to be Love — because Love is cooler. Fear wants to transform into something it’s not.
Many good people believe Love is good, and Fear is bad. So if we just stick to the good and avoid the bad, surely we’ll become more loving… right?
Not quite, says Love - and gives us a lesson in non-duality:
“There’s no right and there's no wrong. Both are the wonders of creation.”
This idea that “right and wrong - good and bad” are not inherent to existence, but rather are a result of our fragmented perception - what the Zohar calls “Hezu d’hai’ Alma” (“the illusion of this world”) - stuns Fear into silence.
The song pauses with a stunning instrumental interlude, giving us all a chance to reflect.
Apparently, Fear takes this time to reflect too… and concludes that this is all too spiritual: “Love, you are so naive. How are you not afraid?”
Saying that “there’s no right or wrong” sounds nice, but it’s not serious. In the real world, there are scary, painful experiences. So how can Love not be afraid of all that?
And then - a surprise:
“Love is saying: sometimes I’m also afraid. But I love my Fear as well.”
Boom. Turns out that being Love doesn’t mean never being afraid.
If even Love is afraid sometimes what is the difference between Love and Fear?
The difference is this:
While Fear doesn’t love itself - and wants to become something else, Love loves itself completely, including its fear.
Love doesn’t separate good from bad. It embraces the whole human experience. To be Love is to sometimes fear, hurt, or get confused – but to meet all of that with love.
